Hating on Big

I got into something of a mental fight this past weekend. In one corner, my childlike sense of wonder. In the other corner, my adult sense of cynicism and distrust.

My childlike sense of wonder got it's fucking ass kicked.

I watched Big for the first time in about 15 years. I'd seen bits and pieces of it here and there, but this was the first time I watched it the whole way through in forever. I guess I was 10 or 11 when it came out in theaters, and like all kids who saw it, I loved it. Because what kid wouldn't want to be Tom Hanks, get a really awesome job at a toy company, and sleep with Elizabeth Perkins in her prime? (Okay, the "sleep with" part might have gone over my head at that age, but still, they held hands a lot.)

But as I watched the film over the weekend, certain things started to bug me. I'm not sure if you'd call them plot holes or things the filmmakers just decided to gloss over or what, but they kind of ruined my enjoyment of the film. So I started writing them down.

I came up with a much bigger list than this, but these are the top five:

1) The Zoltar machine

To enjoy the film, you have to buy into the idea that a fortune telling machine has the ability to grant wishes. Fine, fair enough. But why was it just sitting there, unplugged? Carnies don't forget important details like that. But even if you ignore that one, the machine has to have a decent amount of people using it, otherwise the carnival would have sold it or just dumped it in the East River. So why hasn't anyone noticed that all over the Tri-State Region, wishes are somehow being granted left and right? When 50 people all win the lottery the same week, shouldn't someone be able to make a connection between them and that carnival?

2) Why wasn't there a (whatever Amber Alerts were called back in the 80s) issued?

Josh's mom got a really good look at Tom Hanks when he burst into the house after he changed into an adult. Why didn't she sit down with a police sketch artist, and plaster adult Josh's face all over the news? He would have been arrested within a couple of days.

Now, to be fair, they sort of try to explain this by having the cops think that Josh just ran away, as opposed to being kidnapped. So a raving lunatic claiming he's a woman's son stages a home invasion, after which, there's no trace of the kid, and the cops' theory is that he ran away? These weren't very good cops.

3) Say, what does "thermal" mean?

Throughout the film, Josh struggles with a computer game where he doesn't know what to type in order to proceed. Believe me, as someone who grew up on games like Zork and King's Quest, I can relate to this frustration. But in those games, you actually had to make some real intuitive leaps, like, say, getting rid of the Cyclops in Zork, or figuring out to put the magic bridle on the snake King's Quest II.

In Josh's game, his character is in an ice cave. He knows he needs to melt the ice wizard in the cave. He has something called a "thermal pod." But it's not until the end of the movie until he figures out what to do with it? Was young Josh also slightly retarded?

4) "Wait, you expect a kid to pay $19 for a comic book?"

Josh's big product idea--the film's entire validation of its idea that a kid would actually make a great toy designer--is an electronic comic book that would allow its readers to control what the characters do.

Here's the problem: It's an absolutely horrible idea.

This isn't just speculation, either. Back in the late 80s (perhaps inspired by this film), some company actually tried launching a line of computer games that looked just like a comic on the computer screen. They couldn't have sucked more. Far from the promise in Big that "it would never be the same story twice," you could actually exhaust all the story possibilities in about an hour of gameplay.

Also, the level of technology required to manufacture these comics, as described in the film, barely exists now, much less, in 1988. I mean, they were basically describing mini-Kindles, where each one would come loaded with a comic and somehow retail for less than $20. Oh, and all this would supposedly have been been packed into a unit roughly the same size as an actual comic book. Back then, it would have been more like the size of the Yellow Pages.

Bottom line: It's a good thing Josh went back to being a kid, because this idea of his would have cost MacMillan Toys millions in R&D, and gotten him fired.

5) 30 Going on 13

When Josh suggests Susan also wish to be young, in real life, there's no way she doesn't take him up on it. Can you imagine being 13 again, knowing everything you know at 30? You could get into Harvard! You could avoid unhealthy eating habits! You could correct every single mistake you'd made in your childhood!

Actually, if it were me, I'd probably just read comic books, play video games, and drink beer, just like the first time around. So maybe Susan just figured it wouldn't be worth the hassle after all.